Colorado elk hunting offers hunters the highest number or population of elk in the United States. Colorado elk hunting is managed for the most part to allow maximum opportunity to the largest amount of hunters. Some of the more popular elk units in Colorado are the "trophy units" which are managed by the state for trophy quality and higher bull to cow ratios which leads to better hunts and a much better chance at an outdoorsman harvesting a mature bull elk. Big Game Units or Game Management Units aka as (GMU's) such as unit 2 Colorado, unit 201, unit 10, unit 61, unit 76 and unit 40 are very difficult to draw as the number of elk applications that are sent to the state for each of these units continues to grow and the number of licenses or tags including landowner tags for these units is very low. Unit 2 as an example only allocates 32 early rifle bull elk tags, 24 of the tags go to residents with the most bonus points, 4 tags go to the landowners and 4 tags go to non-residents. The low number of tags coupled with the managed herd offers a hunter an excellent opportunity at at once in a life time trophy bull Colorado elk. HuntersDomain is also an excellent place to order Colorado topo maps or topographical maps.

Colorado elk hunting outfitters can offer private land hunts, ranching for wildlife hunting, public land wilderness elk hunting, pack in drop camp hunts, or public land Colorado trophy elk hunting. Most of Colorado’s hunting guides and outfitters utilize public land that is typically national forest elk hunting. The Colorado Division of Wildlife maintains an array of different big game management units for Colorado elk hunting from trophy elk hunting units to maximum opportunity elk hunting units. This style of management has allowed Colorado elk hunting guides to provide thousands of residents and non-residents each year with good elk hunts and also the chance to harvest a trophy Colorado elk. Hunter's Domain has some of the finest Colorado elk hunting guides and outfitters listed here for your ease in booking that once in a lifetime hunt. Hunters can contact several Colorado hunting outfitters with just a few clicks all from one site. To book your ranching for wildlife elk hunts, drop camp elk hunting or a trip to remember on our national forests call Hunter's Domain or just fill out the simple e-mail form to contact any of our Colorado elk hunting guides and outfitters.

Tips for hunting Colorado elk

Along the Oxbow

Mind Your Manners

As I write this, it’s the first week in May. The high desert is blooming from the refreshing effect of early spring rains, and the cottontails, jackrabbits and quail are gathering around patches of new forage. I see them nearly every day on regular bike rides over the roughly 2,000 acres adjacent to our piece of land some 15 miles north of Prescott.

This is also the time the pronghorn move into the brush country, preparing to have their fawns in the protective covering of the scrub and pines. Within a few days now, they will migrate back down to the broad open plains of the Southwest. If they are lucky enough to avoid the onslaught of the ravenous coyotes, we may see a few of the fawns that have survived to the end of July.

For the last few weeks, I’ve seen a myriad of deer tracks, including two large mule deer bucks that have apparently decided to stay on in the 6,000-foot plateau until the heat of summer drives them farther north, to the juniper wilderness or across the Big Chino to the western edge of the Mogollon Rim and up to the cool slopes of Bill Williams Mountain.

Chris Downs, who does the graphic design/layouts for this magazine, tells me the elk are growing antlers, the stubs approaching 12 inches or so on the mature bulls and a few short stubby growths on the younger males. Of course, the elk have already migrated to the 7,000- foot level of the high plateau, feeding in the dark timber and thick oak scrubs on the south-facing slopes. Small bands can be seen regularly throughout the high country.

For all this wildlife activity, it’s also the time to leave them be.

The females are pregnant or are just now having their young, and the effects of winter are lingering. Thankfully, the times of high stress are over for the year, but a pregnant cow elk, for example, doesn’t need the added stress of dodging pesky tourists and wackos on ATVs that rip up and down trails and old logging roads as if they owned the forest. The same goes for 4x4 trucks and SUVs filled with well-meaning flatlanders who unwittingly chase the wildlife out of the choice grazing lands and away from water holes.

So, if you are out and about in the late spring and early summer and bump into a band of antelope, mule deer, whitetail or elk, just remember that it’s a critical time for the youngsters. Back off. If the adults are induced to scatter and/or run off, chances are they are leaving a fawn/calf somewhere close by. The longer the young are exposed and unprotected, the greater the chance a predator – bear, mountain lion, bobcat, coyote, eagle or wolf – can sneak in and nab the baby. Even if the adults appear reluctant to run off and offer a great opportunity for photos, get out. It’s time to mind your manners and be respectful of the wildlife. There’s time enough in the late summer to get out and view the critters. For now, the wilds should be theirs alone.

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More on Essential Gear

Farther along in this issue, you will find a piece by John Haviland titled “Essential Gear.” I gave him the go-ahead (It was his idea.) for several reasons, mostly because he grew up in Montana and has firsthand experience in some of the wildest country left in the Lower 48. That’s a lot different than asking another writer from Alabama, for instance, to take on the same subject when he may have only been in the “Big Sky Country” once or twice in his whole life – if that.

So, John brings first-hand experience – good and bad – to the table. That’s what effectively separates an “expert” from the “wannabe.” To be an expert, you need to have learned from your mistakes or faulty judgments and survived. This means you may not have come to fully appreciate the word “survival” until you have spent a night out on the mountain in a snowstorm with nothing but your wits and whatever you have in your backpack, assuming you even have a pack with something besides lunch in it. If you would like to know more about hunting elk, check out our Wyoming Elk Hunting page.

Of course, it need not necessarily be a matter of life or death to learn from our mistakes or oversights.

Several years ago I booked a back country elk/mule deer hunt in Colorado. I felt somewhat silly packing up all my gear prior to the hunt, so I pared it down to a choice between my rubber rain gear and a two-piece parka with fleece liner and wind breaker outer shell (from Northern Outfitters). I had packed my super-warm long johns, which didn’t take up much space or weigh more than a pair of wool socks, along with heavy wool pants, so I chucked the rubber rain gear back in the closet.

Somewhere along the line, I remembered that of the three places I have been cold, bone chillingly cold, the coldest was on the plains near Havre, Montana, and second coldest was a few hundred miles above the Arctic Circle on a musk ox hunt where the average day-time temperature was -10 degrees Fahrenheit. Throw in a wind chill factor and it came close to -50, plus or minus a degree or two. The third coldest hunt was Colorado – whereupon, I tossed the rubber rain gear back in my duffel.

No doubt, rubber rain gear is an oddity nowadays where the outdoor catalogs are full of wonderful new garments made from a variety of space-age fabrics that not only keep you warm but also “wick” away the moisture (sweat) and keep you dry as the Arizona desert in July.

First, I really dislike the word “wick” because nothing on earth will keep me dry when I’m walking up a mountain so steep that my knees nearly hits my chin with every step in two-foot snow drifts while wet snow from the low hanging spruce limbs slips down the back of my neck. Deep down inside all of that space-age fabric, I’m pumping out a quart of water every 30 minutes, and the steam is rising off my wool pants like fog in San Francisco. Upon reaching the high valley where the elk are frolicking, I’m soaked from head to toe. There’s simply no “wick” about it.

So, you put on the rubber rain gear, to keep the heat in and prevent a chill in the sub-zero mountain air. If you are smart, you will have removed your hunting shirt and put it in your pack before it became soaking wet, so you have something dry to wear. Or, you can stow the fleece lining from the two-piece parka in your pack to keep it dry as well.

I know some folks are thinking, “But rubber rain gear is heavy.” Right, it is, compared to nothing, which won’t keep you warm at 10,000 feet in the central Rockies in a driving snowstorm when the temperature drops to zip.

If you’re concerned about the two extra pounds the rubber rain gear might add to your pack, look down at your belt buckle to see if you can see it. If you can’t, it’s a bit silly to worry about the extra weight of survival gear.

Hopefully, your rubber rain gear will never be required. Then too, Ole Mother Nature has a nasty habit of tossing the worst when you don’t expect it.

So, I took my rubber rain gear on the hunt to Colorado and didn’t need it. But, one of the other hunters packed lightly, so he wore mine for four days, sloshing though snow drifts on old Thunder Bolt – I think that was the horse’s name. If you are looking to purchase landowner tags, see our Landowner Tags for Sale page to find out more. The hunter, who oddly enough was from Colorado, and should have known better than to pack “lite,” offered to pay for the use of the rain gear, but I declined. He left it at the trailhead when he rode out of camp, and I picked it up three days later when we packed my elk out. Try telling that guy that my rubber rain gear was too heavy.

By Dave Scovill

This article and many more like it can be found by Successful Hunter Magazine. Visit them at www.successfulhunter.com